Is when a student who is proficient in a subject helps a struggling student. There are clear advantages to both parties in peer tutoring:
- The tutor gains a deeper level of understanding through expanding on prior knowledge. This happens through summarizing, paraphrasing, and visualizing the subject matter for the tutee. The tutee has the advantage of a student who has been through the course, understands the problems, and is able to communicate in an understandable way for learning.
- The tutor expands knowledge by creating analogies, finding new examples, and adding details to the subject that were not previously available. The tutee gains from expanded knowledge which can help the light bulb “turn on”.
- There is a comfort level for the tutee in the give and take of discussion that occurs in a tutoring session with a peer; i.e., “How did you know to use that formula for this problem?”